Musk wants X to be stock trading platform built at no-cost

X reaches out to the fintech industry

Since his takeover of Twitter, Musk has unveiled features such as cashtag, where users can see live stock charts by using a $ in front of ticker names, a service powered through a data startup Trading View.

Later, it was announced that users could buy and sell stocks within the platform using eToro, a competitor to Robinhood, a popular trading and investing app. However, this feature is yet to see the light of day, and under its new branding, the Elon Musk-owned company is now reaching out to financial data giants to build a trading hub inside the platform.

According to the Semafor report, X is touting itself as a platform for reaching "hundreds of millions of highly qualified users" but isn't ready to commit any funds toward building this hub. Instead, the company is inquiring about the level of commitment fintech companies are willing to make for the project. It remains uncertain whether any firms have responded to this inquiry.

Will X make it?

The concept of gaining users' trust in social media platforms with their money is not a new phenomenon in Silicon Valley. Both Snap and Meta have attempted this before and miserably failed. Payments in WhatsApp could still be regarded as an exception but is nowhere close to the penetration that conventional banks or even retail trading apps have managed.

Musk believes that integrated services within X could nearly quadruple its own user base to a billion people. Brokerage from stock transactions could be yet another stream of revenues that Musk could be looking to tap into after advertisers remained a bit elusive.

Musk could also be drawing positives from Apple's offering of a savings account earlier this year, which drew deposits of a billion dollars in just four days. Even a small percentage of Musk's 151 million followers using X as a trading platform could garner a few million in brokerage every month.

In contrast to Apple, which has built trust with its customers over many years, Musk's frequent changes and instability on Twitter have driven users away. X not only needs to rebuild that trust but also needs to position its advantages over existing tools, which users have gotten used to over the past few months.

Once again, Musk appears to be targeting a substantial opportunity without demonstrating significant commitment. Without actively participating, there is little he can realistically expect to gain from it.